Software Testing is one of the emerging area in IT industry which is rapidly growing. Increased competition and customer demand has made software testing a key operation which demands nowadays top talents and pay packets.

As software users become “certificate-conscious”, developers are queuing up to use the services of independent software testing (IST) service firms. S Janardhanan, vice president - Technology and Quality, ITC Infotech talks to Divya Girish of CIOL, about the testing domain, scope of current testing market for job opportunities and how the entire domain has evolved over year.

Can you brief us on your software testing portfolio?

Our software testing service portfolio consists of the independent validation and verification services, functional testing, performance testing including stress testing and soak testing (of enterprise applications such as ERP and Custom developed applications), test automation using automated testing tools, quantitative testing, and user interface testing using UI testing technologies.

How would the current testing market help fresh engineering graduates?

Software testing projects provide an opportunity to understand typical areas where developers inject defects and help overcome such areas when the fresh graduates are deployed in software development projects. It also helps them in understanding business systems, test case development, test execution methods and processes.

How do you evaluate the career prospects for testing professionals in India? Why more and more engineering graduates opt for software testing in comparison with software development?

Most of the fresh campus graduates do require to go through a strong foundation and technical training in software development platforms before they become operational. Our own experience does indicate 6 to 9 months of build processes before a fresh graduate is deployed in projects.

However, for testing engagements, the build processes are fairly quick. Over and above this, demand for testing is increasing even during the economic recession and hence possible reasons for engineering graduates to opt for testing services.

How do you see the testing market growing? What is your projection for the market size five years from now?

The Global software Testing market is estimated to be $17 billion dollars. The market opportunity for the Indian offshore testing companies is currently $5 billion, estimated to rise to $10 billion in 2010. The software-testing arena would require 25,000-30,000 professional in the next one year as per the IDC report.

What are the recent challenges faced in the testing domain and will the solutions from your partnership kit address the challenges?

Complete and comprehensive testing is impossible owing to the pressure to complete the testing within the time allocated. Though projects plan for 25 per cent to 30 per cent of effort for testing, owing to delays in the other phases, the time and effort (planned for comprehensive testing) get reduced. Thus there is mad rush to complete testing activities quickly. To do an effective testing, we need to test:

• Every possible input to every variable;
• Every possible combination of inputs to every combination of variables;
• Every possible sequence through the program;
• Every possible way in which the end user might try and use the system

Testers live and breathe trade offs, especially in deciding which test cases need to be prioritized to unearth more defects.

Domain Understanding: Test engineers do not have full knowledge of the business domain, thereby they are unable to comprehend various business scenarios and business processes to do an effective testing.

Financial institutions are under pressure to provide better risk management and transparency, while simultaneously coping with growing trading volumes, high volatility and the need to reduce IT and operational costs. Product companies react to customer needs by releasing updated versions of the software to address this business need as well as, manage regulatory requirements. The challenges seen by customers is the total cost and time required for software upgrades.

The partnership between Thomson Reuters and ITC Infotech will addresses this challenge by accurately assessing the risks of major migration projects, receiving fully validated software releases resulting in reduced total cost and duration, developing highly effective , repeatable and reusable quality assurance packs that will benefit subsequent upgrades.

Thomson Reuters and ITC Infotech have entered in to partnership. How does this partnership help both the entities?

Thomson Reuters and ITC Infotech have entered into a partnership to provide the Kondor+ Migration Services to Thomson Reuters' end customers. The service has been developed in response to growing demands to reduce the total cost and time required for major software upgrades and new implementation of Kondor+. Thomson Reuters will handle the migration and ITC Infotech will execute comprehensive testing to mitigate risks involved in upgrades.

Thomson Reuters will benefit by ensuring smooth and rapid deployment of new software releases by using customer-specific, quality assurance plans. This will enable higher end-customer satisfaction by ensuring faster deployment, bringing in cost effectiveness, higher efficiency, removing uncertainty involved in migration, developing a reusable framework for subsequent upgrades.

This partnership will further enhance the capability of providing IV&V (Independent Validation and Verification) service to end customers of world-class product companies. It would also entail the creation of a state-of-the-art test management and automation facility leading to the formation of a Kondor+ Centre of Excellence. In addition, it would sharpen ITC Infotech’s focus on the Banking vertical.